TREASURY DEPARTMENT Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service of the United States PUBLIC HEALTH BULLETIN No. 47 STUDIES UPON LEPROSY XIV. THE ARTIFICAL CULTIVATION OF THE BACILLUS XV. ATTEMPTS AT SPECIFIC THERAPY IN LEPROSY BY DONALD H. CURRIE PASSED ASSISTANT SURGEON AND DIRECTOR LEPROSY INVESTIGATION STATION MOSES T. CLEGG ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LEPROSY INVESTIGATION STATION AND HARRY T. HOLLMANN ACTING ASSISTANT SURGEON LEPROSY INVESTIGATION STATION Investigations made in accordance with WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE INTRODUCTION. The greatest obstacle that has been met with in the past investigations of leprosy has been our inability to artificially propagate the bacillus, either on culture media or in laboratory animals. Without this knowledge studies in specific therapy were at least difficult, if not quite impossible; and studies in transmission were limited chiefly to clinical observations, or to the mere recording of the findings of lepra bacilli in certain tissues or discharges of lepers, or insects or objects that had come into contact with lepers. If the results which we record here are confirmed by others and become generally accepted, there should result a renewed interest in this dis ease in both leprous and nonleprous countries, and such interest may possibly result in the acquisition of knowledge that will be of use in the control of this disease. REVIEW OF LITERATURE. Bacterial rods were first described as being present in a leproma by Hansen (1) in 1868 and 1873, and by Vandeycke Carter (1); these observations were soon afterwards confirmed by Klebs (1), Auspitz (1), Daniellsen (1), and Neisser (1). From that time up to the pres ent numerous attempts have been made, as the below-given literature will indicate, to cultivate this organism on artificial media: but up to 1909, when Clegg (52) was successful in repeatedly growing acidfast bacilli, morphologically identical with the organism found in (3) |